I just finished reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.It's really a very interesting read. It's about the intangible factors that make people succesful. It uses such diverse examples as Bill Gates and The Beatles. Among the more interesting things detailed in the book are that you have virtually no chance of making the NHL if you are born in the second half of the year. 40 per cent of NHL players were born between January and March. The reason? The eligibilty cutoff for age-class hockey is January 1. Therefore, a boy who turns 10 on Jan 2 could be playing alongside a boy who doesn't turn 10 until Dec 27. The bigger, more mature, more experienced boy will be perceived as more talented and will get more playing time, better coaching and will develop faster. Disturbingly, the same is true in education.
It also tells us why the most succesful corperate lawyers are Jews born in the mid 1930s (because they were shut out of the elite law firms and had to go into business for themselves handling the type of work other firms wouldn't touch-hostile takeovers. However, in the 1970s this became the bread and butter of corperate law, and they were the only ones with the experience in these matters), why Korean and Columbian planes crash more than American ones (because the culture of respect for authority prevents co-pilots from pointing out pilot errors) and why Asian kids are better at math than Western kids (because the language of numbers is more logical in Asian languages and cultures rooted in rice farming have a stronger work ethic than those rooted in wheat farming). Seriously, it's fascinating stuff.